A Fine Line Between Love and Hate
by AnnabelleRivers
Summary: Luna had the nerve then to smile at him, "Oh… your head is all full of whispers, isn't it? Usually, that's a sign of creatures on the outside buzzing around but yours are stuck inside your skull." "SHUT UP, GIRL!" Barty roared, bashing his knife against the stone wall by her head. "You wanted me to chase you tonight. You knew I was here. Tell. Me. Why." (Multi-Chapter)
1. The Queen and her Knight

_**"He ne'er is crowned with immortality, who fears to follow where airy voices lead" - John Keats**_

* * *

 _2 May 1998- The Present_

"If you have returned to me…"

"Then it is over." Barty Crouch Jr. finished the sentence his companion seemed unable to as her voice trailed off. Running a bruised hand over his jaw and down his throat, he swallowed down the urge to tell her more. It wasn't needed.

In time, she would ask for more, as she always seemed to do but for now Barty knew instinctively that she was taking time to process the gravity of what had just happened. The battle was over. The _war_ was over. The Dark Lord was dead. A large part of that thanks to the witch in front of him.

She was sitting there, pristine and pure surrounded by a faint, blue light looking evermore the ethereal woman he'd become so devoted to, the trunk of the oak against her back making the perfect throne. She'd been here on her hill the entire time, hidden away from the fighting but able to see the flashes of colour and blasts of magic from her perch. Barty wondered if she had ever doubted if he wouldn't return with the news she was desperate to hear.

He knelt in silence again, the humming in his mind that he was now used to taking his focus as she continued to stare out straight ahead, her forehead puckered as she craned her neck to see the dusty grounds of her old school far below. It was odd to him that so much had taken place in the span of a few hours, odder still that he had managed to survive it.

It was because of her. His witch. Ever since she had called him closer to the bars that held her captive inside of Malfoy's cellar, fate itself had tilted and twisted to bind his completely with hers. From the first moment she ever truly looked at him, even long before the cellar, he had felt that shift inside. Only now, he didn't bother to fight it, giving in fully as she knew he always would for Barty had been lost in the depth of Luna Lovegood's gaze more times than he could count.

Since that first time, she'd slowly taken charge of his mind, body and heart until where he ended and she began became a line so blurred he could no longer see it. Barty suspected she had his soul too, although he was uncertain of how much remained for him to offer up. Luna deserved all he had and much more. It was a devotion that had been building for years and accelerated in recent weeks as she had kept him by her side, preparing for the end of his old Master.

To keep patient, an entirely new concept for him, Barty focused on the feeling of the earth pressing into his knees. Soreness had started to return to his overworked muscles as simply kneeling in her presence suppressed the rise of adrenaline of the earlier battle in his veins, making him more aware of the aches in his body. The smell of burning was less overwhelming here on the hillside and he took several deep breaths to try clear the taste of dust in his throat. Light was beginning to return to the sky as the new day dawned. He delighted in how each minute changed the light around the woman before him.

Luna's magic was humming over his own. Barty could feeling the tingles of power that was undeniably _hers_ running over every inch of his body and mind. His heart's was slowing too, the rhythm settling into a more familiar pattern and he waited much more calmly with eyes lowered for her to call him closer. This was his show of respect, of submission, to a greater power than any he had known.

He knew she liked it even when his Luna would never admit it.

At last, she made a soft sigh and whispered his name. It was the indication he had been waiting for and so the Death Eater rose from where he knelt, his eyes still trained downwards in an act of willing surrender to the witch before him.

As he stood, Barty caught a glance of a rip in the left sleeve of his robes that exposed dried blood and fading blank ink. The blood could be wiped away but he knew the mark would never truly fade completely. He'd chosen it to be branded into his skin, after all, and had never regretted it more than when it was visible to his Luna. It represented a choice- one he had never been able to outrun, not that he had tried very hard before he met her. A part of him wished for the ability to make a different choice now.

Luna did not meet his eye as he approached, gazing out away from him instead from her cross-legged position against the trunk of the craggy oak. There was no need for her to look at him yet, they both knew that when she did it would bring him under her unspoken spell impossibly more. _A kiss would do more than that_ , he thought with an eager grin that he quickly erased. _Not now._

Cautiously, Barty stepped forward, resisting the urge to wipe away the long strands of matted dark hair that stuck to his sweat-covered face, a gesture of vanity never needed around the tiny blonde girl that he so openly worshiped now. She never cared about appearances, her own usually a carefully concocted shroud of baubles and beads to hide the powerful being he knew laid coiled underneath. Barty understood now that the distraction wasn't just for the others she spent her time around. It was more for herself, to play pretend that she could be an innocent young woman still despite the arsenal of formidable magic coursing through her.

Time around Luna had shown him how much she struggled with the changes as well. She had yet to accept her inevitable darkness, only, admitting to it to him in rare moments. She had a lifetime of hiding her real self and only a short while of accepting it. They both knew there was more to her that was left untapped but it was hers to discover.

It never mattered how much Barty knew of her secrets, his life was as good as over now. The battle had ended and so had his usefulness. He hadn't want to admit that to himself, the part of him that she had unlocked that yearned for companionship had been in mourning for over a week once they had both realized the end was near.

Life had been a bitter struggle for as long as he could remember and while the months tethered to Luna had been a kind of servitude that extended beyond anything he had known, Barty wanted nothing else in this moment than for her to keep him by her side longer.

Luna beckoned him again, stretching out her arm to welcome him closer, though it was entirely unnecessary. He would always want to come to her. The urge had been growing more and more since she had taken him over completely.

Barty had felt that same need to find her the moment his false master's lifeless body had been destroyed, spilling his truly filthy blood on the stone floor of Hogwarts' Great Hall.

He glanced up to gauge her reaction, watching how Luna's silvery-blue eyes never moved from their focus on the fist-sized white crystal resting in her other hand as seconds turned into minutes. Wanting to gain her attention, like a puppy to its owner, which is what he supposed he was, Barty quickly moved closer to settle into his favourite position with his body laid out beside her and his head resting in her lap.

He peered up at her then in gilded, reverent silence as his heart slowed to an easy pace, the thoughts previously racing in his mind leaving him in peace as the familiar humming surrounded every part of him. Slowly she stroked his fine hair, pulling the longer strands back from his clammy skin as the edges of her nails scraped his scalp lightly and he released a shuddering breath at the comfort of her touch.

He was home in her embrace.

 _Home_. A feeling and a place he had thought lost to him the moment his father's voice had rang through the Wizengamot chambers to denounce him forever and his mother had turned her head to hide her tears from him. Except he had known they were there, the shaking of his mother's shoulders had haunted his murky dreams for years as he floated between reality and magical submission under the silky texture of his father's invisibility cloak.

However warped he understood it to be, even in a mind as rotten as his, Barty knew he was home when he felt Luna's gentle touch. He was home in how she made him feel like an equal even as he laid at her feet and in how she held all of this power, letting him have a direct line to it through her touch. To at least _feel_ the potential churning in her made him nearly dizzy, an addicting feeling that was grounding and uplifting together. For however dark he was, he knew this witch of light better than anyone.

She was everything to him. _His Luna. His moon._

"Where is he?" Luna asked after a while. Her voice was soft but he knew the strength behind it. She was not known to him to be one who is light without purpose. Not anymore. Only fools would fall for such an assumption of his witch.

Barty also knew there was only one _he_ she cared to know about, the same one he had referred to as his Lord for too many years.

"He's dead. The boy tried to finish him but he was too strong. I called the others and we tore him apart at the limbs and burned all the pieces left behind as you instructed me to do." Barty tried to interpret the slight twitch in her pale cheek, falling short to understand as she carded her fingers gently through his hair again. Reaching out to lay a hand on her thigh, he repeated, "It's finished."

"Where are they now- the others you called?"

She meant his brothers, the few Death Eaters he had collected at her bidding. Barty had managed to sway them not only to the Order's cause but to Luna's, a rather easy feat once they had a true glimpse at the power she could wield. They were a loyal group, that much was ingrained in them all as pureblood children and tested over years of servitude to the Dark Lord. Barty had used their loyalty to his advantage again tonight, when his blood had sung for Luna's sweet touch, he left them with false promises she would come for them soon.

Pity the third time that bargain had been offered was still not enough to make his fellow Death Eaters learn from their mistakes. No one would be coming to rescue them from whatever hole in the earth the new Ministry would find for them. Luna was a great power, but that wasn't for evil-doers like them. Or him.

Still, he couldn't lie to her. It simply wasn't possible. "I left them behind to come find you. If they can, though I doubt it."

"Good." There was coldness in her voice as she spoke the single word.

Luna was quiet then, slowly running her fingers over his scalp, easing the tension he was holding there. It brought back memories of when she had pulled him close to her only a few weeks ago, seeking his touch late in the night after holding herself away from him under the assumption it was better for his already lost soul if she didn't take further advantage. That night he had proven his soul mattered little to him anymore, her own had taken up a higher reverence to him, along with her body. _My moon._

He sometimes felt the faintest jolt of shock that little Luna Lovegood could soothe him so easily, until the humming and the buzzing that was undeniably _her_ encased his senses and he was reminded that she was the only source of comfort left for him in this world. That she could and likely would destroy him with the same ease was never what surprised him. Only her affections, for how could someone so light treat a thing as dark as him with gentleness. Death was always the expectation.

Barty hoped he would welcome it when she tired of him at last.

"What now?" he asked after the sun had risen higher in the sky, the rubble littering Hogwarts' grounds becoming clearer to them even from her secret spot on the hill.

Her ethereal voice replied, "He ne'er is crowned with immortality, who fears to follow where airy voices lead."

It wasn't an answer, more of a clue to where her thoughts were at the moment. She had been quoting lines from the same poem for three days now, the gift of the words left behind by her dead mother. Barty knew she spoke less and less in these passing weeks, a stark difference to his old Lord who seemed to love the sound of his own voice above all things. Where the Dark Lord had arrogance, Luna had a knowing. She didn't need to utter a word to convey her meanings. It was a gift for him to hear it.

There had been a time before her when his life had been filled with pain and madness, when the essence of who he was had been fading more each year into an unknown dark place. An all-consuming blackness that ended the moment she looked into his eyes, _truly looked as she hadn't before,_ even in the years of dreams she had visited him in _,_ right into what was left of his battered soul. He knew then that she was his salvation and laid his life out before her. With a welcome sigh and an honest nervousness, he had surrendered into the warmth she had him feel, relieved to feel a lightness coursing through him that pushed everything back into its proper place inside.

He felt almost _right_ for the first time. With ease he followed where she led, dedicated to her cause as if it had become his own. He no longer cared about blood purity or the schemes his life had previously been dedicated to, he only cared for and about her. What Luna asked him to do, he did with reverence. His body was eager to come curl beside her and receive the reward of her gentle touch, a treat he gladly accepted as he carried out the often bloody and necessary tasks she held herself away from.

Barty felt a tickling in the back of his mind, a reminder that she had taken control of him much like others had before but any hatred he may have felt at such intense manipulation had long left him. What had started as an inability to hurt her had become a need to please her greater than any he'd known. He loved Luna too much to fight against her magic and accepted his place by her side instead. Even if that meant his own destruction.

It was more than the devotion a man felt for a woman; this was the worshiping love a man felt for his Divine or perhaps even the unending love the Divine felt for the world created. This love was the reason he didn't resist the pull of her inside of him, even as he knew just as clearly as he did anything else, that she would be done with him soon enough and he would be left behind discarded. There were no other options.

They stayed there together, an odd couple of lightness and darkness away from the rest of the world. Luna sighed lightly, her eyes now gazing forward toward the partially destroyed castle in the distance, her fingers continuing their calming strokes against his hair.

Barty turned in her lap once more to look closer at her, admiring how her hair was also catching the light, dangling over his face in a way that made him yearn to touch her, but she had not asked for that. Barty couldn't touch her without her permission, just as he couldn't pull away when she wanted him. He was a possession of this witch even when they both denied it. Rather they pretended of late to be lovers but there were barriers that would quickly remind them both of their places as master and servant. He knew she hated it but he had given up any strong emotions about it weeks before. It simply was.

Gazing up at her, he saw how the light blue of the shimmering wards around them were glowing against her pale skin with the hair he was itching to touch swaying slightly as if there was a breeze flowing through it. These details enticed him to want to memorize every little piece of the moment before it was gone.

It was finished after all.

"You are my everything," Barty whispered at last, moving closer still to rest on side of his face against her stomach as he peered up at her, willing her to turned her head down to meet his eyes again and feeling an almost overwhelming sense of relief when she did. Luna looked down at him, the smile on her face and love in her eyes the only thing that existed in the world for him now.

She moved the crystal in her other hand to rest on top of his chest and began to gently stroke his face, the cool touch of her hands moving slowly from his rough jaw to his forehead to run through the top of his tangled hair. Luna repeated the motion again, humming softly to match the vibration he could always hear in his mind now, and he felt his eyes start to close. Barty's mind was clearer than he ever remembered it before, bathed in a bright light that left him feeling boneless in intense relaxation.

"No one person should be your everything, neither you nor them can bear it for too long." Another stroke against his skin relaxed him further before she added, "Rest now. You did wonderfully."

At the realization of her words, his eyes opened again.

"Will I die?"

Barty wanted to hate the childish question as it stumbled out of his mouth, wishing his last moments could be filled with a show of strength and not another weakness, but her gentle humming melted away any true hatred. He was left with a confusion of emotions and questions. What would his moon think that he couldn't accept the fate he had ensured for dozens of others when he had so easily killed without ever a second thought. What would he face in death? What would he have without her magic entwining around his heart?

She sighed, a sound like snow falling that felt different from the heaviness of his own and answered his questions as if he had spoken them out loud. Luna's responses were short and at pace, with the pulsing motion he now felt from the warming crystal on his chest.

"Fate doesn't require acceptance. Death is but a moment. You will be free, Barty. That's what matters the most."

Barty closed his eyes, breathing in the feeling of her warmth and let go.

* * *

 **This story has been expanded since it was originally posted on an old profile. Original Alpha Reader credits to Calebski.**


	2. Disguises and Nonsense

_She was there again._

Luna Lovegood. The tiny blonde girl who waited behind more days than not as the rest of her classmates scurried out the door, eager to get far away from the elusive Professor Alastor Moody. Today, she stood with her arms dangling casually by her sides, her worktable still littered with scraps of paper and purple dyed quills. Clearly, she had no intention of leaving anytime soon.

He knew it was eventually coming to this. Barty could sense the girl had been finding the courage to stay longer and longer each time, her eyes wide and lips shifting from a smile to a less assured frown. Each time, he would pause and fix his borrowed magical eye in her direction, waiting until she would, at last, scurry off.

Today there was something more. The old clock ticked off seconds as a new stare down began in earnest. In a hasty attempt to rush the girl off, Barty continued to move around to the other side of his own desk, the fat hands of his temporary form reaching for stray parchments, his one good eye narrowing into a glare.

At this, the student smiled. A cocky sort of knowing grin which ticked more violent urges within him. Her eyes wandered, looking him up and down as she took in each movement. She looked as if she was trying to figure out a puzzle and he didn't like that one bit.

There was something about this odd girl with ridiculous vegetables hanging from her ears, something he couldn't find even as he traced her lineage in the hidden parts of Hogwart's library to explain how she felt older than anyone he had ever met and yet as young as the child in front of him. Barty knew about the Lovegood family, Xenophilius had always been more of a laughing stock amongst the other pureblood families, chasing after made-up creatures after his wife killed herself in a potions accident.

 _Weak, the whole lot of them._

This one's tiny voice made him want to silence her forever in a deadly blast from his wand every time she asked one of her inane questions in class. She was too soft, too sweet and far too fragile looking for the madness in his mind not scream for him to break her. His skin crawled when her attention turned to him, shivers erupting along his transfigured, curved spine. It infuriated Barty that a child could disturb him in ways he hadn't before felt, distracting him from where he should be focused.

Had it not been for a greater mission that he was here in the guise of her wretched professor, he would have strangled little Luna weeks ago with glee. Perhaps even left her broken body at the doorstep of her zany father for the sheer thrill of it. Already he felt the need to _hurt_ churning in his gut again.

Long gone was the euphoria of at last killing the wretched wizard Barty called father even though it had only been a few weeks since that fateful meeting at the end of the Forbidden Forrest. He kept replaying the memories at night in his mind, marveling at how they shifted over the weeks and yet every time the ending was the same. His filthy father was dead, buried, and gone.

With the heat of the hatred he carried for the senior Crouch dissipating since he'd finally ended the bastard's pathetic life, Barty began to feel a bubbling starting in the darkest parts of him for something or _someone_ new to take that place. Being caged in had a way of doing that to him and even with knowing this mission would make his Lord most pleased with him above all, he could not get away from knowing that he was encased within this false flesh as much as any bars or curses had held him before. A prison was a prison, whether made of disguises, cloaking spells or stone.

"Professor?"

Hearing her voice altered Barty back to the young student before him. The Lovegood girl hadn't spoken to him outside of class before, only rushed off before giving any sort of indication as to why she was there in the first place.

The way she called for him was the same as it was during lectures. _Innocent._ Barty wanted to unleash his mounting rage, to make her large, bright eyes widen in terror at last as he snuffed out the childlike wonder radiating off the girl, the way his own had been stripped away before he ever stepped foot on Hogwarts' grounds decades ago.

Why couldn't she flinch around him like the other snot-nosed, little idiots did when they saw the marred flesh of the man he impersonated? It was the one good thing about clamoring around in the deteriorating body he had chosen, no one was keen to be around him for long. Student and teachers alike made quick excuses to leave the room when he entered, most openly wary of the magical eye and it's rumoured abilities.

"Professor?" she called out again. This wisp of a girl was going to continue to grate his nerves with her wide eyes, soft voice, and confusing remarks until the day came that he snapped on her completely. He knew it as well as he did anything. _Just can't be today!_

Leaning heavily on the cane, he shuffled the lumbering body he was in a few inches so he could more squarely look her in the eye. He damn near growled his response. "What, girl?"

Barty was at least a titch grateful that Alastor Moody was known for his gruffness, if he had to pretend to be sweet half the damn class would be dead by now. Nearly a full year kept inside these castle walls was twisting his sanity into dark patterns, bringing his past too close to his present as memories collided nastily with reality in his mind. The corridors were filled with echoes of long ago that still reverberated inside his head and made his heart beat faster, making him feel as pathetic as the sniveling weakling he once was.

She took a few cautious steps forward. He gripped tighter yet onto his cane.

"Tomorrow is a big day, isn't it, sir?" Luna asked, her silvery-blue eyes staring too deeply into him. _Have I noticed the depth of the colour before?_ The thought came to him followed quickly by a more comfortable, _Who cares what colour they are? She's the filthy daughter of a blood traitor! Pluck them out._

"Aye," he grumbled, already wanting the conversation to end. "The last task and all tha'. Shouldn't you be off to find your friends?"

"I've already done that, sir, and made sure they will be safe. Thank you for the late advice, however."

 _Late advice?_

"What in Merlin's name would make them unsafe in a place as grand as Hogwarts?" He sneered at her, neverminding if it shifted his borrowed face too much like his own. She needed to leave now before he gave into his urges and ended her life right then and there. The only thing holding him back was knowing how his Lord would react to such a failure in his mission. Otherwise, his vision was tunneling the longer she stood smiling up at him.

The Lovegood girl tilted her head slightly to one side, blonde tresses decorated with ribbons falling off her shoulder. "One must always be prepared. Right, sir?"

 _Idiot child._ _What now is she blathering on about?!_ He peered closer at her but things started to feel more fuzzy the longer she stood unflinching in front of him. It was hard to tell if his own urges were causing the reaction or if Moody's blasted eye was failing him at last. Taking in a breath from deep in his belly, Barty doubled down on his glare.

She wasn't afraid of his scrutiny and he wanted more than anything to fix that. Barty thought for a moment, wanting to hurl the best insult possible to the tiny Ravenclaw to ensure she thought twice before bothering him again.

"Tell me, Miss Lovegood, how exactly you plan to keep your friends safe when you are already exceptionally poor at defensive spells? Never before saw a Ravenclaw so distracted- a bleedin' Hufflepuff inside, aren't ya?" He saw with a twisted feeling of delight his question hit its mark as she looked back down to her pink shoes. _There! That ought to get rid of her._

Except when she looked up again, he saw something he had only seen once before in the dark eyes of his Dark Lord. Back when he was at his most powerful, before the Potter brat. A time when Lord Voldemort had been able to silently pull an entire group of wizards to his side with one dark glance. _A true power bubbling close to the surface._

Yet here it was coming from a tiny girl with hardly any exceptional abilities to speak of from a fringe family cast out from most of wizardkind. There was a sudden Darkness coming from her, as if a veil had been lifted to reveal a truth more powerful than Barty could have expected. Her light colored eyes hadn't changed, only the intensity of her stare. The way something seemed to crawl inside of him and yank at all the vital organs from the inside and yet nothing was truly happening in reality.

For a wild moment, Barty abandoned any other thoughts he has about the young girl except for one. _Power_. She had access to something he hadn't touched before and it made him stand still in fascinated wariness.

Luna clenched her fists, glancing quickly around her as if to ensure they were alone and released a long exhale of breath. Barty watched, mesmerized, as a shift came over her face, the oddness about her that he hadn't been able to place coming up to the surface to reveal a much colder, harder witch in front of him. The veil he thought he has seen lifted moments ago seemed nothing more than gauze compared to what he saw in her now.

She didn't appear to be as fragile and light as the contrasting energy inside her took over her entire being, those silvery-blue eyes now like ice. _Or a steel blade._ Even when she spoke, there was a difference to the tone of her voice.

Had he not already seen many of the horrors the world had to offer, he would have been more scared instead of curious at the change in her. Afterall, he was one of the few wizards who had faced the Dark Lord's wrath and lived to tell the tale.

Either way, Barty gripped his wand with deadly force, prepared to strike the girl down if needed. _Dumbledore be damned._

She spoke, her voice still as light sounding as before only with an unhead vibration that demanded to be listened to.

"Something terrible will happen tomorrow. I know that. You know that. I think you will find my magic is _exactly_ what is needed to keep my friends safe. A protection someone buried on our grounds didn't have. I've come to say goodbye to you, Mr. Crouch."

 _Mr. Crouch._

The sound of his name, his real name, pulled him out of the daze he felt when he looked at her. The Lovegood girl was no longer a student or child if she knew such things. She was the enemy and Barty Crouch Jr. _destroyed_ his enemies.

He drew his wand and slammed the classroom door shut, letting anger seep into his magic as a warning. With careful steps, he shuffled over closer to her with his wand aimed at her throat, wishing he could slip out of his borrowed visage just enough to frighten the wide-eyed third year though he was beginning to suspect nothing would upset her enough to satisfy the rage he felt towards her.

 _Tear her limb from limb!_ The manic urges inside of him begged for a release.

The hardness he sensed in Luna Lovegood's magic and her person slipped slowly back away like sand moving from one end of an hourglass to another. It seemed effortless and yet controlled, just as her strange reveal had been until he was faced with a smiling, tiny and innocent girl again but he would be no fool to such tricks.

They were both hiding who they were and he would tear her secrets from her. He suspected then he would see more than just the glimpse she had shown. It was a theory Barty was happy to test as his hands twitched to tighten around the slim column of her pale throat. She would die with fear in her eyes if he had anything to say about it.

"What did you call me, girl?" he asked in low, dangerous voice daring her to utter his secret again.

She smiled and tilted her head slightly, as if his display of power was a joke to her. "You can't hurt me, Mr. Crouch. Actually, you don't even want to if you think about it hard enough."

"Be damned if I don't," he sneered in return. He growled again, pushing his body forward to find it wouldn't budge. It was if she had put up a ward between them and yet it was more than that. Beyond the physical, magical barrier there was something in his mind that stopped his steps and made his wand arm lower. _She isn't to be touched._

"They'll have you taken away once they see who you really are but it won't be me that tells them." She paused, moving slightly to gather her things from the worktable, as if this odd and extremely dangerous conversation had never happened at all. Her pink bag covered in beads made a tinkering sounds as she packed.

Luna gave him a sad sort of look, her light brows stitching together as she saw the confusion on his face. Barty wanted to hurt her, to choke her pale throat until she never moved again and yet- he didn't want to move at all. Something else had overtaken him, a calm and firm reminder that he didn't actually want to hurt her. Or at least he couldn't even if some part of him still did.

She continued, "There will be death tomorrow and I can't stop it from happening. At least not yet." The words came from her like an omen, solemn and calm before a lightness flooded back into her voice as she waved a ring covered hand and giggled softly, "Goodbye for now, Mr. Crouch… and remember… _constant vigilance_."

He stood, unable to move or speak. Although he didn't see her wand drawn, she walked quickly away, through his wards and out the now open door. It was only after she had left that he had control over his body again and still Barty didn't move to chase her down.

 _He didn't want to._

* * *

 _She was watching him there._

He could feel Luna's eyes on him, making the back of his neck feel as if a hundred ants were crawling on his clammy skin. All day he had managed to avoid the strange student, focusing instead on repeating the necessary steps for tonight over and over in his mind. His darker urges were swimming to close to the surface as every part of him knew that in a few hours he would be free and welcomed back to his Master with open arms.

A huddled group of students moved past him, moving his attention back into the direction he knew _she_ was. _Stop it!_ Now was not the time for the girl to be on his mind. There was a mission to complete tonight. _The mission._ He would deal with her later, maybe bring her to his newly returned Lord as an offering for his good graces. _Yes._

The Potter boy was standing by the entrance to the enormous hedge maze. In keeping with his disguise, Barty stood next to him and offered words of advice before returning to the stands where a handful of the other professors stood at attention. On the inside, he was gloating at how easily everyone was fooled in thinking dear Alastor Moody was looking after their beloved hero. It nearly made up for knowing the chances were high that he wouldn't be able to escape tonight without being caught. Though it wouldn't be for long, his Lord would come for him soon enough.

With a twisted sense of pride, Barty watching greedily as the final task of the Triwizard Tournament began. He kept his sole focus on watching as the students entered the maze and followed closely to the announcements to clue him in as to when to strike first. It was only a matter of time, and well-placed curses on his end, until the Potter boy reached the portkey planted in the center. Oh, how his Lord would be so pleased with him and all the anguish of being kept inside the horrid school for this long would be worth it. _I will be rewarded!_

As he hobbled his way down the stadium seating, Barty took a chance to look over the crowd. There she was again, the little Lovegood brat but she wasn't looking at him anymore. He could see from yards away that her light eyes were trained on a section of the maze, her lips moving rapidly without anyone around her to be talking to. He also noticed the mudblood girl looking at her curiously before shrugging and setting her own filthy eyes back at the hedge maze.

 _A countercurse. The girl thinks she can stop me with a measly countercurse._ Barty would have to silence her then _with pleasure._ Which would be easy enough to do with everyone else gathered in the stands focused on the hedge and the event starting. One quick jinx to knock her off her feet and remind her truly where her place was, vague threats or not. Barty's fingers flexed around his wand and in that second, Luna turned her head away from the maze and looked straight at him.

It felt as if all the sound around him had been sucked out and once again, his vision seemed to get fuzzier as her eyes met his over the distance. As their gazes locked, Barty realized that there wasn't as great of a space between them as he before thought, the girl was suddenly an arm's length away, every detail of her infuriatingly delicate face clear to him. No one around seemed to notice them and yet he hadn't heard her cast any charms to distract wandering eyes. _This must be another of her tricks_.

"How'd you do that?" She made no move to answer him. Angrily he asked another question, fists tightening. "What game are you playin' at, girl, muttering like that?"

The truth was, Barty was genuinely curious along with being outright pissed that she was doing something screwy to him again. The grounds were protected from apparition and yet she was here, right in front of him. A tightening in his stomach announced his growing concern as his attention was once again being pulled away from his mission. He was supposed to be paying attention to that task, not the girl. _He hated her._

She shrugged and tilted her head slightly to one side as she had in his classroom. "It hardly matters now. Not much is working anyway, perhaps that is fate at play."

 _She makes no bloody sense!_ There was a flash of light from inside the hedges and Barty went to move closer only to feel his feet stuck again. In anger, he whipped his head back to glare at her with his one good eye, prepared to do whatever it took to remove the silent spell she had cast on him and get back to the task at hand. He had to make sure it was Potter who reached the center first. All of this was for nothing if Potter didn't touch the hidden Portkey before one of the other idiots did.

The Lovegood girl spoke again, only he didn't see her lips move but he heard her voice clearly in his ears. Childlike sweetness with an ancient echo in her words. "You have a task to complete, Mr. Crouch. I've been told by professors before that I am not good at waiting for outcomes as I'd like but it seems this must play out as originally intended for now. This won't be easy on either side. "

Then, just as slowly as she had spoken, Luna nodded. Her silvery-blue eyes never broke their gaze on his even as tears began to form, threatening to drip down her tiny face. "Do what you must, Mr. Crouch."

It felt like he was given permission, a thought that he tried to shake off as she walked away, the barrier preventing him from moving gone at last. With an annoyed growl, Barty set back to his original goal of reaching the hedge and carried out what he had been planning for months.

Tonight his Lord would return in proper form and he would be rewarded handsomely for his part in it. _I'll ask him then to give me that girl as restitution!_


	3. Dreams and Desires

_She was there inside his dreams._

Even rotting again inside an Azkaban cell, he couldn't escape seeing Luna Lovegood's face smiling at him every time he managed to tune out the screams in the cells around him long enough to find some rest. It was always the same dream every time. It added to his madness, his fists striking the cold, stone wall every time he woke.

In each dream, she was doing nothing more than smiling at him and offering a wave of welcome as he saw they were back in his stolen Hogwarts classroom. Only now he was without a disguise and so was she. She wasn't in Ravenclaw school robes anymore. The odd girl looked older than her physical years in a way that disturbed him beyond his usual madness.

Luna stood quietly in front of him, by the desk she had occupied the whole time he pretended to be her professor in a long gown that faded from blue to white. Her blonde hair was longer too, billowing all around her as if it was caught in a wind that surrounded only her.

She always looked everything of a tempting demon, a goddess of beauty with danger lurking close behind those strange eyes. Luna was a girl still in reality but in his dreams she appeared more on the cusp of becoming a woman, the dress she wore magnifying those changes. It made him hate her and hate himself more for the lustful thoughts that peppered these dreams and left him awake the following day with haunted feeling.

Barty knew he was a monster, he had been crafted into one by one master and then another, but at the very least he hasn't crossed certain lines that this witch was tugging him across.

He hated her for a hundred reasons, not only now because of her softness and frailty but because she held a power he could never obtain. She had her claws in him somehow.

In his dreams, Luna would smile at Barty until he broke the silence with his usual angry questions.

"What are you?!" he would rage at her, throwing desks and books around him and still she never flinched. Only standing there, smiling and watching him.

"A witch, Mr. Crouch. What else could I be?"

That was always her answer to the question before she would sit in a chair, half-turned away from him and start mumbling to herself about _testing limits_ and _lucid states_. He would catch snippets of her questioning things herself, making him uncertain if she knew what she was doing either.

Oh, how he would seethe then, screaming obscenities at her when his feet refused to move closer, his fingers nearly aching to hurt her. He would tell her of the vicious things he would do to her once his Lord freed him from the dark prison to join with his brothers again. Luna never flinched, even as he grotesquely described ways he would kill her and everyone she cared about and he hated her more for it. _She should be afraid of me!_

"Here you can't harm me but it looks like you can _want_ to do things I cannot allow. Dreams are funny things if you think about it." Her calm response was the same in every dream.

Each time Barty would ask her the same question, it spilling out between clenched teeth as if she was pulling it from him. "Why didn't you stop me from sending your little friends off to my Lord if you knew that's what I was going to do?"

"My Mum used to say that our magic was powerful but never omnipotent. That it was meant for…. well, it doesn't matter now. Besides, I talked with a ghost that morning who suggested some fates have to play out in order to weave new ones… and one should listen to the advice of those dead among the living, don't you think?"

Barty lost track of the days, which was easy enough to do in the pit he was sequestered inside of with no windows and hardly any light in the rows of cells. The dreams kept coming in the same pattern until one night, when the prison was unusually quiet as if the building itself sensed a change coming.

That night, the moment his eyes fluttered shut, Luna came to him dressed in Death Eater robes and a silver mask clutched in her left hand.

"Are you insane?" he hissed at her, reaching forward to throw the mask far from them to have it turn into smoke at his touch. Barty couldn't explain why but seeing her touching a thing of such darkness made him angrier than when he thought of her innocence. _She shouldn't be too much of either._

"In this place… I can say that maybe I am. At least I'm as _insane_ as you are." Luna stepped around him to trail her fingers across another wooden school desk before turning back. "I can feel things I think I shouldn't... or maybe I should. I tried to tell someone but the words got stuck. It's hard to talk when you aren't sure who your friends are or if you even have them to start with. We are all focused on becoming little soldiers now. No time for talking about our feelings and things buzzing inside our heads."

I know things now like how the one you wish to join again is sending others to free you- _all of you_. Without you staying in the same place every night, I am sure your mind will be harder for me to feel and find. I'll have to join in my own fight with my friends here at Hogwarts. The wheel is turning again."

Barty sat down across from her, the urge to show his power through anger dissipating in the very real moment between them. In these dreams, he felt something around the strange girl he hadn't felt around anyone else. It confused him, made him feel violent with no outlet for emotions he couldn't understand and yet it made him not want to waste the few seconds he felt he had left inside the bubble of this illusion.

"Then this is real? These dreams?"

Luna tilted her head, her eyes roaming over his face before she answered. "Yes. I think so much here is real while other things are not."

"Why'd you start coming to me like this?" He had so many questions, an entire armada of unknowns gathering in his head.

She looked puzzled for a moment before answering him calmly. "At first I didn't try… it just happened."

Barty opened his mouth to ask her more but she reached across the small space between them and pressed cool fingers to his lips. "No time," she said. "You will return to the life you had before. This... _experiment_ didn't work, obviously. I wish you wouldn't hurt anyone but there's nothing I can do about that. Not now at least. Goodbye, for now, Mr. Crouch."

Barty woke from that dream to the sounds of stone being blasted apart. As Luna had predicted, he was being set free from the wretched prison and called to the Dark Lord's inner circle once more. One leap in the direction of the freedom he craved, he was desperate enough for it that he gladly accepted the cost of rejoining his maddening Master until weeks later when Barty realized that little Luna really had left him alone in the dark.

At night, instead of having her join in his dreams, he was alone with a mixture of thoughts and memories. It made him work even harder on strengthening his mental walls, his resolve to never let someone get that close again growing tenfold. Closeness only brought failure and he was not going to allow himself to fail next time.

* * *

 _Of_ _course, she was there._

Barty had tried not to think of the little blonde as he prepared to follow the small group of Death Eaters through the spelled cabinet into Hogwarts. The mere idea of going back again made him want to bash things into the walls but he held on, focusing solely on completing their mission. Their Lord was less happy with him and his brothers in these days, his wrath causing many to become more desperate to please him.

Barty glared at the others clumsily filing out of the cabinet knowing many in this group were intent to change their Master's opinion of them at whatever the cost. First, they had to ensure that Albus Dumbledore died tonight at the end of one of their wands. Nothing could be more important. It was necessary for the rest of their Lord's plan to continue forward, with them all in tow.

He had promised himself that only after the old fool's body was thrown off the tower would he allow himself to find _her_. That was his deal to soothe the nagging Barty felt in his mind as images of her silvery-blue eyes teased him. It had been what felt like another lifetime since their last encounter, despite his attempt to track her down. He hadn't been pulled into one of her strange dreams since his escape from Azkaban, and he felt a sliver of emptiness each morning to not have her magic tingling around him.

Barty filled that gap with rage and bloodlust, volunteering for more dangerous assignments to prove that he was better than pining for the girl who had dared to try and stop him. He would continue to prove his obsession was nothing more than an urge to break her once and for all, a rotten mixture of pain and pleasure weighing on him. What was more troubling was the equally strong wish to hide her away from what he knew was to come in this war. It upset him beyond reason to know he felt something of a desire for her and Barty was determined to snuff it out.

Little Luna had used some Dark magic to control him, he understood that much. Years spent under his father's twisted spells had made sure Barty would never forget what it felt like to have his mind taken over. He had obsessed over it in the silent moments since his rescue from Azkaban and was certain now that whatever power she had was as twisted as any forbidden curse.

Thinking of her- again- made Barty divert his original plan as his body seemed to become more tense with the thought of finding the girl at last. Eyeing the backs of the Death Eaters making their way to the Astronomy Tower, he slipped off to find a different set of stairs that would lead him to the Ravenclaw common room.

Barty clenched his wand in one hand and a long, curved knife in the other, whistling softly to fill the quiet. There was no logical reason to explain it but he knew she was around. He could feel her. As made his way towards a staircase, he spotted blonde hair braided with ribbons rounding a corner heading towards a different section of the castle. _There she is!_

He ran off in a new direction, chasing his target down several flights of moving staircases and through wide corridors, determined to not use his wand to halt her. He wanted to hunt her in an animalistic way, wanted to throttle her neck with his bare hands. It was what she deserved, this little witch who thought to play with his plans.

She was trying to catch her breath, her back against a wall when he finally caught her. Her usually pale face was flushed pink with her exertion and he was surprised to see her wand was already pointed at him. She certainly had learned more since he had last taught her. _Good, little Luna. You'll need it._

The nearby torch cast shadows across her face and yet still he could see those bright eyes of hers clearly. "Good evening, Mr. Crouch, I see you've returned to Hogwarts." He saw a slight frown form on her face as she continued in a haughty voice, "And in your true form. I had hoped you wouldn't come to find me and take my first offer seriously."

"First offer for what?" he asked.

"Freedom… _I think._ I'm holding back something I don't even really understand. And yet you came to find me….you probably shouldn't have." She looked worried which confused him more. Was this the same girl who had gloated she was more powerful than him in the Defense classroom years back?

"Why did you look for me, Mr. Crouch?"

Barty's own face twisted into a scowl. "Because you deserve payback for what you meddled in- the affairs of grown wizards are not the business of little daughters of loony blood-traitors! I'm not alone this time either, witch. What will you do when your magic isn't one on one anymore?" He took a threatening step towards her, surprised when he didn't feel an invisible barricade preventing the movement. With her silently watching him with her wide, light eyes, he took another step and then another until he was looking down at her face only inches away. "Did your little party tricks stop working, girl? Or have you just given up?"

"Nothing of the sort," she said slowly. "I can stop you if I want. I can feel that in me still."

Barty leered at her, his tongue darting out to the corner of his mouth."Then why don't you?"

Luna had the nerve then to smile at him, the same dreamy look he'd seen too many times before coming over her face. He rolled his shoulder back at the sight, tightening his muscles in preparation for lunging at the tiny witch, at last, to wipe that damnable smile off her face himself.

"Oh… your head is all full of whispers, isn't it? Usually, that's a sign of creatures on the outside buzzing around but yours are stuck inside your skull."

"SHUT UP, GIRL!" Barty roared, bashing the knife against the stone wall by her head. His entire body was clenched and tensed as he seethed at her. "You wanted me to chase you tonight. You _knew_ I was here. Tell. Me. Why."

The Lovegood girl dared to smile wider. "Because this way you are distracted. There's now one less Death Eater celebrating on the Tower. You want someone to blame, Mr. Crouch, but you must remember that I didn't ask you to come here tonight. I tried to leave you be." As the words left her lips, Barty heard shrieks and cackles amplified in the otherwise silent night around the castle. The Aurors would arrive any minute now, lessening his group's chances of escape. Luna nodded her head as if agreeing with his unspoken thoughts. "They should be leaving now and you best be off with them."

When Luna didn't flinch at the glare he sent her way for _once again_ trying to give him orders, Barty sent a stunning spell into the stone by her head, snarling at how the dust from the refined blast bounced off her erected personal wards and turned quickly on his heel to join the others he had come with. As he ran back through the corridors, he heard Luna's voice again whispering in his ear even though he knew with infuriating certainty she was not behind him any longer.

"See you in your dreams, Mr. Crouch."


	4. Gifts and Madness

_She was waiting for him._

When finally Barty was able to stretch out on the bed allotted for him inside of Malfoy Manor, he could sense sleep wanting to take him at last. It had been a long fucking twelve hours of ordered celebration and bloody revel. He was exhausted and in need of a pain potion but he certainly wouldn't be the first to ask for one. _I won't be weak!_

Instead, he rested with his eyes shut against the afternoon sun peeking through the curtains and sank quickly into a deep sleep. And there she was, little Luna Lovegood waiting for him in his dreams once again. He wasn't sure if he was relieved to see her there again at last or not but he accepted it for what it was. An inconvenience to his rest and also a chance for some fun.

Barty had figured out before that the same rules didn't apply here.

She certainly wasn't the same. In these dreams she was again an older vision of herself, youthful cheeks thinned slightly and full lips a deeper colour. Luna was sitting at her old assigned desk with her arm raised high in the air, fingers waving like an eager schoolgirl. Her same blue and white gown a needed clue to remind him this was one of _her_ dreams and not a nightmare of being back inside of Moody's body.

"What, girl?" Barty asked in a rough voice as if he really was her old professor again.

"I'm wondering, sir, if you can explain to me the difference between a sheep and a leopard?" Her face held a hint of a smirk as she looked up at him.

Disgusted by how he had gotten stuck with an irritating witch such as Luna and wanting to curse every ancient wizard he knew for such a horrid turn in fate, Barty huffed and slammed one flat hand against the desk beside him. She didn't flinch- like always. _Bitch._

"I've been playing your games for fuckin' years now! _I'm tired of this_ so if you want to know the answer to your foolish question, you'll have to tell me yourself. I'm not adding to this barmy conversation!"

It was his resistance to playing along that proved him right again that in these dreams he didn't always have to follow her suggestions or stay behind invisible barricades. It was still clear that she was more powerful than him and quite possibly more powerful than the Lord he served but things were certainly different in the illusions she pulled him into. He only had to provoke her enough to find out what limits he had in this space and what this witch could really do with her strange brand of magic. It was a risk he was more than willing to take. An assessment of Luna would be needed to see how useful she be if he managed to gain the upper-hand.

Luna kept on as if this was normal conversation between normal people which couldn't have been further from the strange reality.

"A sheep follows his shepherd blindly and needs the flock to keep going. A leopard knows his own power and carves his own path alone. You are sheep when you could have been a leopard. I bet if you could manage a Patronus charm, it would have wool." She ended with a giggle that sent a shiver up his spine.

"You think you know me, little Luna? Think you understand because you can pop into my dreams at will? You've only _just begun_ to live in a world at war. I've known it for more years that you understand, girl. The mark on my arm was _my choice._ And someday, somehow, I am going to make _another_ choice… to end these tricks of your at last." His tongue flicked out again as he stood straighter, glaring down at her as she looked back up from her seat.

Then, with intentional slowness he bent at the waist and laid his palms flat against the wood surface of the desk, his fingers curling around the edges. Their eyes were locked, dark against light like so much between them, never breaking even as he was close enough to see his breath moving stray strands of her hair. " _I. Hate. You_." Barty spat out smirking as her eyelids fluttered with the force of his words.

"I know. I can change that."

The dream faded quickly away after that moment and he could only watch as Luna disappeared into nothing, leaving him alone again and feeling irritatingly uncertain of the feelings she was stirring up.

* * *

 _She_ _was there below him._

He could feel her presence in the manor before he was told that Luna was the one Bellatrix cackled about. The manic witch was gloating about how Dark Lord had let her instruct Selwyn and Travers on their mission to take 'the dotty fool's girl' from her home as a warning her father. Xenophilius was publishing articles in his paper against their cause and it needed to be stopped.

Rather than just kill the man, their Master had let Bellatrix play a bloody game with the elder wizard. The two goonies sent to take Luna away were told to not be gentle. Barty had punched a wall in his borrowed quarters at the mere thought of Selwyn laying a hand on her, healing the broken skin quickly when the Death Eaters remaining at the Manor were called to gather. It was time to greet their new _guests._

It was the first of many techniques they would employ to scare prisoners into submission. Barty was seething already to know how many of his brothers would be interested in a young, pretty witch like her.

He wanted to protect her from them, if only so he could take her apart _himself,_ his possessive feelings stemming from a twisted need to have her to himself. _I hate her._ The thought felt more like a false reminder and fizzled away with none of the usual heat.

Barty made his way down the main staircase and joined in the circle forming, completely on edge as he spotted a set of violet slippers that must have been tossed to the side near the stairs. At the center of the gathered Death Eaters were two dirty werewolves cowering under Greyback's glare, traitors to one of the packs he controlled who were accused of trying to join the Order. Too close by the wolves was little Luna who had her eyes shut tight as Selwyn pressed his wand into her neck, his other hand fisting her blonde hair.

His skin was prickling and hot at the sight. He wanted to lash out, to rip her from the leering wizard's grasp. Barty directed his glare at Luna and pushed his rage into his magic with a wayward wish she would feel it and open her eyes at last. His tongue flicked to the corner of his mouth in nervous anticipation of what would happen next.

Narcissa stepped forward, urging in a quiet voice for the gathered Death Eaters to act quickly in whatever they were about to do. Her demented sister kicked at one of the whimpering men huddled near Greyback.

"Kill them already, wolf, we've got no time for this," Bellatrix said. Barty could tell she feigning boredom, her greedy, dark eyes gave away her interest in the possible violence soon on display.

Greyback's large arms reached for the werewolf closest to him, pulling him up by the short hair on his head and snapped his neck swiftly. The crack of the motion that had ended the werewolf's life echoed in the large room.

At the sound Luna's eyes flew open, her panic clear.

After pining to see fear in her delicate face for years, Barty realized that he didn't like it at all once he saw it right in front of him. Her breath was coming out in short, heavy bursts and her eyes kept darting around the room as if she was seeking a way to escape. He stepped forward making a low sound in the back of his throat that might seem like irritation to any watching eyes but it was all for her. Barty felt a need to get her attention, to get her to focus on him instead.

At the snap of the second werewolf being killed, those silvery-blue eyes found his finally. He saw her shoulders droop barely an inch though her breathing was still erratic. _That's it, girl... look at me._ He half-imagined she could hear him and continued to repeat his wish for her to look his way. It wouldn't be beyond her to tap into his thoughts, they both knew that and yet he also knew this wasn't the confident witch inside his head at night. This was a terrified young woman surrounded by gleeful murderers.

If she was going to be afraid then it would be of him. Anything less than that was unacceptable to Barty.

Not caring what questions came afterwards, though he doubted anyone would be brave enough to ask what a madman like him was thinking, he kept his focus solely on Luna. Even as Selwyn dragged her away to the door that led downstairs, her frantic gaze stayed locked with his. Other than the emotions playing across her face, she was still and silent, submitting to the men pushing her through the doorway without resistance. Barty continued to watch even after the door was shut behind Travers who followed the pair closely, his fists clenched painfully tight once he would no longer see her.

Under them was an old wine cellar that Bellatrix had transfigured into a series of prison cells, clearly with her long years at Azkaban in mind. _She doesn't belong there!_

He needed to hurt someone and fast, the desperate need to feel and inflict pain making him wish to punch another wall. If he couldn't keep it under control, his rage would boil over and cause him to do something rash to giggling Bellatrix who was making bets with the others gathered for how soon Luna would crack. The only shred of good feeling he had to cling to was that she wouldn't be alone in the cells, the wandmaker Ollivander had arrived a few days earlier. _But why does that make me feel better?_

As the small crowd dissipated, he remained still with his focus still trained on the shut cellar door. _How had they found her?_ Barty knew the Lovegood home was hidden, he had tried to find the plot of land for years and yet they had found her and she wasn't using her magic to stop them. It angered him. It confounded him.

It was a very bad sign.

Confused and cranky, Barty left with Rodolphus to run a patrol around the village of Hogsmeade, a shift he had taken a few times already, and tried to put together the puzzle that was his current situation.

Luna Lovegood was here in the same place with him at long last. He could do something to stop her from using her odd magic on him now, as he had been threatening to do. He could also find her in a weaker state and inflict the pain he'd dreamed about as well. Or the pleasure. Only all combinations of those thoughts made him feel sick in his gut, confused as images of both the child and the older, dream form of her flickered in his vision.

Pushing those thoughts aside, Barty knew he also felt as equal of a need to understand why he had wanted her to look at him for strength when she was afraid. Why should he care at all what happened to the annoying, little witch? What had she done to him to make him want to help her? It confused him, irritated him and made him want to run down to those dungeons and take her away as his forever.

In the dark, early hours of the next day, Barty returned to the Manor and stood near the door that led to the cellars below. _To her._ He could hear Selwyn's laughter echoing below along with Bellatrix and imagined the spells they were using on Luna for their entertainment. He felt troubled in a way he hadn't felt at the knowledge or participation of torture before and yet he couldn't open the door. That would only lead to a disaster and Barty wasn't sure whose body would lie at his feet by the end of it.

 _Too much to risk. She's not worth it._ Except there was the quieter thought that maybe she was.

Below his feet, beneath the marble floor of the pretentious manor now laid a true dungeon, smelling of mildew, sweat and blood. He had gone down to the place nearly a week before to goad at Ollivander, a wizard who had always adored his filthy father. The air was thick then, filled with a sense of evil lurking around the corners of dark stone. Barty knew now that with a young witch added to the heady mix, it would be an ambrosia for the darker members of his brotherhood. _They'll want her too._

He watched them the next two days slinking off between meetings with grins on their faces as the door to the cellar creaked opened. Each time, images of Luna lying broken in the shadows with monsters' hands roaming over her skin would run rampant in his mind and he would dig his nails into his palm in fury.

 _They have no right to touch her. No one does._

It infuriated him that she was allowing this, that she didn't fight hard enough to get away when Death Eaters showed up at her front door. He couldn't find an answer as to how or why they had been able to find her so easily when he had been blocked from coming kilometers within her family's home for years. Barty knew this witch had the power to stop things he had yet to imagine but here she was as their prisoner. _Weak! Idiot girl!_

As he fumed, pacing in his room until the sun rose, Barty realized that maybe, just maybe, this was part of some plan the witch had concocted. That she was letting this happen to see what he would do. _Like the other games she's played._ It was a weak theory but all he had to hold him on the right side of sanity every time he heard the cellar door creak open. There had to be a reason why she was allowing this to happen to her.

He suspected, or maybe it was that he hoped, something more was scheming in her rose-tinted mind. Luna obviously had the power to stop someone if she wanted and he was itching to find out why she was allowing this to happen.

It didn't take long for him to see clear evidence of her powers in use again.

The first time Selwyn returned from a trip to the dungeons with a dazed look on his face, Barty nearly sighed in relief, knowing that she had done one of her tricks to protect herself. He was confused by how he reacted to seeing the blank faces of his brothers, but not understanding was becoming normal when it came to little Luna. She had confused him since the start. He held on instead to the relief that came over him as each wizard to returned unsated from their twisted attempts to break her.

Many more went down to see her as days turned into weeks, all making crude jokes about her surname and just as many returned with not a hair out place, their eyes glazed over. When Narcissa Malfoy realized her shit-for-use husband had been one of the Death Eaters sneaking off to see the strange girl, she and her sister made a quick plan to move Luna into a long-abandoned section of the cellar separated by brick.

The first night in her new cell, she had called for him in his dreams but the pull was so faint, Barty was able to ignore it, taking pleasure in making a stand by not coming for her. Yet he felt nauseous at doing so. He remembered all too well what it felt like to be young, alone, hurt and hidden away.

At first, Barty wanted to keep testing her, to see how much more she could take before she would do something more drastic, although what exactly little Luna could do was still a mystery.

A few weeks after she was taken, he whispered into Greyback's ear about the untouched girl below, standing sentry by the cellar door the entire time the wolf was downstairs. He hoped having Greyback stalk over to her cell would be enough to scare her, to unlock whatever she kept hidden inside.

Only the wolf came back with an expression of lude satisfaction instead of the trance-like state the others had. It rose panic in his spine to see his plan to test the girl had ended with her hurt even more. In fury, Barty snapped the filthy werewolf's neck in a surprise attack that very night. He could only hope that little Luna would recognize the thud of his dead body falling to the floor above her prison as his first gift to her. _An apology._

Making that his new mission, Barty continued to seek out ways to manage the way having her so near and yet too far away made him feel. With a more resolved spirit, he decided that if she continued to intrigue him so he would continue to offer her such presents. She was quickly becoming an obsession although he had yet to make his way downstairs himself. The list of reasons why made him too uncomfortable to focus on them.

He offered her a second gift by dropping Selwyn's lifeless body hard against the marble, convincing the other Death Eaters the dead wizard had spoken ill of their Lord. Of course, he kept it to himself that it was because he had heard her crying late into the night when another student from Hogwarts, a boy named Dean Thomas had been killed in front of her by filthy Selwyn.

Barty looked down at the shocked look on the other Death Eater's face, admiring with a grimace the way his head was twisted at an impossible angle from the neck-breaking curse he had cast.

Then Barty heard her voice, soft and breathy as if she was whispering in his ear, which she couldn't be logically- he had checked with a frantic shake of his head that the blonde witch wasn't standing right beside him.

"You did good to kill him. _Two down_."


	5. Smiles and Secrets

_She was always there._

 _He hated her_. She had done something to him, something he couldn't explain, to make him not hurt her. To make him obsess over her. Barty knew it and he was finally going to confront the confusing witch.

At last, he had taken the stairs down to the cellar, walking past all distractions until he stood in front of Luna's cell. He looked across to where she sat with her head tucked closer to her chest. Her eyes kept their gaze towards the floor, clearly she was ignoring the muttering sounds he was making and refusing outright to look up even as he hit the palms of his hands against the bars. It made him hate her more and so he would slam his hands against her cell again. That was all Barty could do. Anytime he reached for his wand, his hand refused to move towards it.

He had settled for insults instead, hurling threats at her and still she didn't flinch. When that didn't work, he berated her with questions. Each question spitting out of his mouth in quick succession, reminding him too much of the old dreams. There were things he needed to know.

"What have you done to me, witch? Why did you let them take you? Why are you here? Why did you not fight them all?"

She didn't answer. Only looked up at him with her head tilted slightly to the side, the same infuriating pose as usual. Like he amused her. Until at long last he would sulk away again, more frustrated than before. _Bitch._

Barty dreamed of her on the rare nights when he could close his eyes without the screaming inside yanking them back open. Only these dreams were of his own creation, no Fae-like Luna in the old classroom asking silly questions. Instead, she was naked beneath him, crying out his name. It was him in control in then and she submitted to his will. In those dreams, he caressed her body as slowly as he liked, his hands and tongue always at work against her skin. Her moans would echo in his mind even as he laid awake in the morning trying to suppress them underneath the layers in his thoughts. Before too long, his lust would inevitably turn into rage as Barty tore through his own bed sheets with the urge to both take her as his own and destroy her piece by piece.

It was magic he knew that much to be true but what spell this girl could use to bring him so close to the edge between desire and hatred was a mystery he was determined to solve. She was too inside his head to not have used some Dark spell to do it.

During the days, he stalked through the manor, blasting snooty decor lining the walls between pointless meeting Lucius called in order to pretend he still had any sort of authority. They were all lame ducks here until their Lord would grace the entryway of the dining room and list of dark tasks to be completed. The sooner the rest got that through their thick skulls the better.

Barty stood more times than he wanted to count outside of the door that led down Luna, feeling her call to him and thankful in a twisted way that it was faint enough that he could still ignore it. There was no use in questioning how she was doing this to him anymore but that didn't stop him from running it over and over in his mind until the mystery of her magic became yet another piece of his madness.

When she came at last to him in a dream he felt almost relieved. This one was clearly of her choosing by how they were back at Hogwarts again, the same desks between them as before.

Luna looked less...well, he couldn't put a word on it but there was something missing in her visage. A brightness. As Barty watched her carefully sit behind one of the school desks and motion for him to take a seat as well, he realized with a start what was different about her. She had lost her feeling of innocence. For inexplicable reasons this made him want to force himself out of the dream and run down to find where her physical body was hidden away behind brick and bars. Something had changed her and he knew the blame laid on him, too. He hated knowing that.

Neither of them spoke. They only sat watching each other as if, without admitting it, they both needed a place to be that was away from reality. When Barty woke that next morning, he knew what he had to do.

Little Luna was calling for him from her cell again and he needed to come to her. He could try to resist the pull of her strange magic but he didn't want to anymore. She had become important, worming a place for herself into his life despite the danger and the threats. Barty thought that it meant that she belonged there as part of him and in that dream, he gave in to the emotions he had fought for a long time. _I am hers._

* * *

 _She was sitting there in front of him._

Only sitting. Had it not been for the layers of bruises he saw decorating her body or the way her fine blonde hair was matted with her own blood in sections, Luna would have looked as if she was coming over for tea. Her face was calm, not blank as he'd seen before in the faces of the dying and not guarded as his own features had been arranged in meetings. She appeared perfectly calm and serene. Annoyingly so as he made a show of approaching her while she looked on without flinching. There was even a slight curve to her lips as she watched him settle onto the floor in front of her makeshift cell.

This time she seemed like the Luna he had been meeting in dreams only markedly different. There was no denying the reality she was living in when he looked at her face now. She may have appeared calm in her game of unsettling him but he could see enough physical damage done to negate it. Barty knew all too well that what was on the outside as bruises and cuts meant real destruction on the inside. He felt bile rise in his throat.

Seeing her in a place like this brought back those confusing protective urges in Barty. Why she had allowed the torture evident in her body was also a question he couldn't answer. _She can stop this!_

Clearly, this witch was powerful and could make it known if she wanted. Even on his way down the stairs, he had passed a dazed-faced Travers clutching his arm close to his chest. Someone had apparently either broken through the shields and tricks she had thrown at him before or she had lost strength in her magic over her stint in the dark cell.

Barty wouldn't allow the thought that she had given up to ruminate. Not this Luna. She had to be the same woman who crept into his dreams, the same little witch who had done something awful to him that day in the Defense classroom. _No, this was Luna Lovegood._ He had felt and _seen_ that she had more power in the tip of her little button nose than many wizards he had watched being taken down with far less effort over the course of his life. She could not have given up.

Glancing over to see Ollivander curled into a ball on the floor, Barty cast a series of charms to make sure neither he nor anyone who might come down the stairs to overhear. It was high time little Luna and him had a conversation in the real world. Even as he whispered the spells, he told himself it was to make sure that when he did get to make her fear him at last, that no one would interrupt him and yet he knew, in a part of his mind that made him itch inside that he couldn't hurt her even if he still wanted to.

Sitting with his back against a column by her brick bordered cell, he fixed her with his best glare and spat out, "Why am I here? You kept calling me to come down here, little witch. Tell me why."

Her answer came without pause, almost as if she had prepared it.

"I think it's time we talked, don't you? Outside of a dream… without disguises." He stayed silent but she spoke with the same soft, fragile voice he remembered from years before. "I didn't know when this started how terrible things would be in the future. My parents tried to shield dark things from me but I always found them. Especially death. It seems to hover around me like nargles to mistletoe...there all the time even if I try to swat it away. I think it might finally win now, though."

She learned closer as if whispering a secret to him. "I had to do something about it before death found my friends but it kept coming back. There are too many of you that ate death and liked the taste of it. They want to see me die slowly and I cannot do that."

Barty sat in silence to absorb the meaning behind her words, his fingers flicking tiny, hot sparks of magic to distract him from wanting to come closer to where she sat. Being around Luna now made him want to beg for forgiveness, for the taint of his sins being anywhere near her. He needed her to understand a part of him that he could hardly remember in his madness. At her honest words, he heard his own whispered confession as a reply, starling himself at the rawness in his answer. " _I didn't have a choice_. Not at first. And I didn't ask for you to step into this world either. You did that on your own, girl, and made life much worse for yourself. Leave me be now and I'll get you out of here."

"I think you could be a better man someday. I can see it. "

Luna scooted closer to the bars and reached out a battered hand in his direction before he could respond. Barty wanted to take it but couldn't decide why. He wanted to break her fingers if only to make her feel some of the pain he felt. Wanted to hold her if only to make sure she was real.

"Mr. Crouch-"

"Stop saying that! No, no, _no_ …. I'm sick of hearing that name from you. Never call me that again. I am not _him_." _Why am I saying these things to her?_

" _Barty_ , then." She smiled at him as if he was her friend and not a killer desperately working to restrain himself. He suspected she was as scrambled in her mind as he was and her sweet smile stayed in place. "I'll call you Barty."

There was silence again between them, broken nearly a minute later as Luna's face ducked back down, her features more grim. "I sat here for days thinking of any other way to end this and found none. My mum warned me if I did this," she paused to shift her weight, a wince sneaking through her calm mask. Barty felt his fingers twitch to find his wand before he stopped himself. There was no reason to help her. She hadn't made him. _Yet._

"She said this would be what would destroy me but I think I'm already lost in this war. So are you I suspect...what could several more steps to the edge matter for?" Luna hummed for a moment before continuing, "Simple logic that it should be you."

"You make _no bloody sense_ , girl. Speak plainly for fuckin' once! I am tired of this!" _Oh_. There it was, more of his unhinging. All because of little Luna and her distant, sad eyes.

He was getting angry now, wanting to bash her head against the brick and not trusting himself to reach forward. Not because of her barriers or his own rage but because Barty didn't want to deal with if his hands would held her instead. He didn't know where the line was anymore between affection and disgust.

Taking a moment to inhale and exhale slowly, he added in a voice that nearly sounded too uncertain to be his, "You've already done something to me, girl. I can't shake you off. _Ever_. You're always around me. In my fuckin' head. What more could there be?!"

"There's more." She frowned. "I think it might be a relief to you. Then again, that might be one of those reassurances we give ourselves to feel better."

Neither spoke again for several minutes, the dripping of water in a distant corner keeping the time. The quiet between them reminded him of the most recent dream. It unnerved him. It comforted him.

At last he shattered the silence, his eyes roaming over her battered body. "You disgust me, sitting over there like broken china doll when you have the ability to do something so do it. We both know you could have stopped them from taking you. And you could have kept them from hurting you and _still_ you let them. Why be _weak,_ " Barty spat out the word with a growl, "when you know you are strong?"

Luna nodded and pulled herself into a better sitting position using the bars. "Alright. I suppose you are right. I've been more scared of myself than your lot." She was quiet again for several second before calling back to him. "Barty, move closer."

He snorted, wanting to leave her in her own filth here before he would follow an order from a little witch like her. Anger was giving him a powerful tether in his confusing emotions and he was not ready to leave it behind.

His quick refusal died as he saw it in her face again. Old magic. Ancient power. _Her._ That flicker of blue flame in her eyes that quickly turned into a full, raging fire. It seemed unexplainably real and incredibly imaginary in the same breath that this strange girl could exude a quiet sort of power that left her pretty, doll-like face perfectly intact, the smile on her lips never wavering and yet in her silvery-blue eyes he found himself lost forever.

"Come here to me." Her words were a soft command.

Barty knew that rationally they only looked to be an odd couple of monster and girl staring at each other through the bars but inside his mind, there was a storm raging.

He couldn't keep himself away from her anymore. Dark blue surges of magic were crashing against the walls holding back his innermost self until he could no longer resist her. As his mental barriers fell down, a feeling that was entirely _Luna,_ the same sensation from his dreams, overtook his senses. Her eyes seemed to brighten, a glow coming from them that made it nearly impossible to look away. Suddenly and all at once, he felt her everywhere inside of him, in his mind, his heart and places he had no words for. His skin felt as if it was vibrating and yet he didn't feel any movement at all. They were only sitting there, Death Eater and prisoner but inside his head there was a loud hum of magic echoing all around.

Without having an explanation, he understood a chilling concept. Luna was in control. She knew him now, fully and completely, and Barty felt overwhelmed at the way her magic coated the inside of him.

He leaned forward as the humming grew louder inside his skull, resting his forehead against the bars and breathed in the moldy smell of the cellar. Luna leaned closer too, their eyes never unlocking as the sensations he was feeling soothed finally into a feeling of undeniable comfort and relief. Barty realized with disgust, she was trying to make him feel better as her parasitic magic wormed through him. It was just the right spark to bring him back to a semblance of who he was before he had walked down the steps.

In a flash, he reached out, grabbing a fist full of blonde hair but as his fingers threaded through her locks, his fist flattened into a caress. He couldn't hurt her.

 _I don't want to._

Instead, Barty felt a new sensation overcome him, one of devotion. He wanted to touch her still but now he wanted sweet kisses, to sit at her feet and beg forgiveness for every bruise and cut that marred her perfect skin. _No!_

"What have you done to me?" The desperate question came again, this time with a pleading tone as Barty pressed his face against the bars in an attempt to get closer to her. He needed to touch her and have her touch him back. "You've bewitched me somehow. What spell did you use? Or is this the result of a potion? I'm obsessed with an enemy I should want to destroy. Tell me...pl- _please._ "

"It's what I had to do, Barty. You'll see someday."

The sound of commotion above them had both Luna and Barty standing up in alert, though she took longer to find her way back to her feet. He listened to the shouts and sounds of struggling bodies, piecing together what he could but as he looked back at Luna she didn't appear to be confused at all.

She waved her hand and he felt his earlier charms disappearing. As did the bars separating them, each one thinning until she easily stepped through. Some part of Barty's mind whispered that he should be shocked, maybe even furious, that she could have escaped the entire time but he remained unusually quiet as he watched the witch move out into the greater area of the cellar.

Calling over to the other side, she said, "Mr. Ollivander? You have to try and stand up now….it's time to leave."

Then Luna looked back at him, those eyes he could stare at forever looking straight at him. "Barty, I need to leave this place. _Now._ Will you help me?"

"Of course, little Luna," he replied almost automatically. He would do anything she asked.

And she smiled.


	6. Touches and Magic

_Her hand was there._

Pressing against the middle of his back, a grounding reminder of why he had to act with urgency as they made their way together out of the makeshift dungeon and to the obscenely large sitting room where his brethren were gathering. He felt a boost of pride that a witch such she would lean on him for her rescue. He also felt a more anger gathering as her bruises became clearer in the light and he saw how to sucked in part of her bottom lip with each step on her right foot. _I'll kill the bastards who did this!_

Luna had given him instruction on what to do once they entered the main hall. Lists of people to keep safe and others she wanted gone. _Dead._

With a detached sense of awareness, Barty realized even as they prepared for the fight they were guaranteed to face that he still had a choice to make. He could still disobey unlike being under Imperius curse where there was no choice. It was only that he didn't want to stray from what she asked of him. He could if he wanted. He didn't. She could have pushed him further. She wouldn't.

Of course, he wanted to fight still against it, as he had for so long now but there was something different happening inside him now. Barty realized with a morbid sort of curiosity that when he allowed his thoughts to follow her unspoken desires, he was filled with a tingling sort of comfort. It felt good, addictively so, and all he wanted was to feel more of it. The more he nodded as she spoke about how they needed to escape, the less his headaches. The more he caught her eye to see her approving look, the more his muscles relaxed. _What has she done to me?_

They waited, hidden behind her wards at the top of the stairs. Her eyes were trained on the back of the door that had hidden her and the feeble wandmaker away from the world. He could feel the had on his back trembling.

Only minutes had passed and yet Barty could see clearly for the first time that this _little witch_ was the way to end the war.

She had access to a magic that had been long stamped out of the pureblood families through regulations by the Ministry. The Dark Lord had an inkling of there being more to their world's collective power, often ranting that the Ministry controlled schools were purposefully weakening the future generations. Barty hadn't given it much thought himself, relishing instead in the power his own two hands could have without being tied to puppet strings, hands that had choked out his father's life rather than reach for his wand, if only to prove he could do it.

All the while there had been one family that knew of the old magics and found the power lying within in their child. He thought that she must be a weapon, one only to be activated in the most desperate of times. Apparently, she had deemed his part in the Triwizard Tournament years back as such a threat and turned that magic on him.

Now he was helping her escape, prepared to do whatever it took to get her to safety where he could have the solitude and privacy to thank her in the best way he knew how. He could feel through the bond, it was the best word for the new sensations he could grasp, that she wanted this too. They were forevermore entwined.

Her voice was in his ear again but he didn't need it to know what he had to do for her. For her plan. There was yelling all around him, annoying him in how it disrupted the utterly Luna feeling churning inside him. _I'll just have to end the yelling then._

Spells aimed to kill him bounced off the protective shields Luna had erected as she dove to her hands and knees, crawling over to grab the three teenagers laying in a pile on one side of the room. Shaking off thoughts of how her hair caught the light even in the dim hall, Barty gritted his teeth and turned his unused rage back on those yelling in his direction. Thankfully, his eyes lasered on the deranged, black-haired witch at the center of the room.

All the repressed urges to rip a life apart were poured into his short battle with Bellatrix Lestrange. She fell without much protection from her family and the others in the room, a twist he realized later was the result of Slytherin ambition. Let the Dark Lord's favourites die and there was room for more to rise up.

Barty was called over to where Luna held out an outstretched hand and he took it quickly, the tug in his abdomen signaling their departure from the wretched Manor.

* * *

 _She asked for him there._

Luna wanted him to stay close by, whisking him quickly away into a bedroom a tall, blonde woman pointed her towards. He followed without resistance, delighting in how her fingers entwined with his as she led him away to a more private space and wishing he didn't enjoy the feeling.

The rest of the group, Order members he'd realized, were bustling about the cottage, setting up wards and arguing in hushed tones. They were angry and he knew why. Little Luna had brought one of the bad ones to their secret hideout.

Apparently, this was the home of one of the oldest Weasley sons. Barty felt a twist in his gut at the thought of having to spend time around a family he hated so much but one glance at Luna's face quieted those feelings. Whatever more she had done to him, the fact remained that she was safe and here with him. Close enough to touch. Close enough to hurt. If only he wanted to.

The vague thought of her being all that mattered came to him again. As much as he wanted to resist it, he liked the way it felt when he didn't more. Giving into the feelings made the humming return, it was soothing. _What has she done to me?_ The thought was almost second nature and yet Barty felt the anger behind it lessen.

He sat in a chair by the window, listening to the sounds of the ocean waves outside as Luna watched him carefully. She wanted him to look at her, he could feel that and yet it wasn't strong enough to make his head turn. Not yet.

They sat in silence together as was becoming normal. Outside the doors, he could hear more of the Order arguing and the telltale sounds of people Apparating. They would near to act soon, him and this girl, before there was a bigger, angrier mob to face.

At the sound of her whispering his name, he felt all the rest of the world go silent. She was all that mattered here.

"Barty?" Her voice was calm and soft, her brows drawn as she looked him over. "Are you still in there?"

He wanted to laugh, a real honest laugh but it felt so foreign to him that it came out as more of a breathy scoff. "I'm more here than I've ever been. I can feel you...your magic crawling around. I shouldn't like it." _But I do._ He closed his eyes to concentrate on the humming that should be provoking if it wasn't so soothing. " I want to be angry with you."

Their eyes met again and he counted three heartbeats before she answered. "I know." Luna leaned with her back against the wall by the window, her head still turned towards him. "I think that's the epitome of this. That you shouldn't like it but you will. That you should hate me but you won't."

She reached out the palm of her hand. "I need to borrow your wand, Barty."

 _Absolutely not!_ The request was enough to pull him firmly back into his more natural self as memories of torture at his own wand surfaced. She sat still unblinking in front of him, her hand still out to receive it and he felt at once a war inside of his mind, both sides screaming for him to never give his wand to another and also for him to do as she asked.

Yet he knew even before he reached for his wand that he would give it to her. There was this new, horrid willingness inside of him, an eager man trapped inside who wanted to do anything for her. He wanted to please her for his own pleasure.

Feeling entirely out of body, he watched as one of his shaking hands reached into his robes and pulled out the dark, gnarled wand and placed it gently into her waiting hand. Slowly she approached him, pulling a chair to sit with her knees pressed against his.

"Thank you. I know none of this is easy,'' she whispered, stray tears falling down her cheeks that Barty reached up to wipe away before he thought about what he was doing. With a nod of thanks, she leaned in more, her tiny hands reaching out to cup his cheeks. He sat still as stone as she brought their faces closer together.

He was lost again in how beautiful her eyes were up close, the color flecked with the tiniest hints of a darker blue towards her iris and turning almost completely silver on the outer edges. These were the same eyes that had haunted him. The same that now made him feel whole. Having her touch him was so willingly was more intimate than any Barty had known before. He wanted more.

Luna smiled softly before sitting back to murmur a song-like spell as she slowly passed the wand over him and then herself. Barty could only watch with reverence as bruises disappeared and cuts healed, the sound of her voice bringing back the humming again in his mind.

When she was done, he saw her open her mouth as if to say something more, her head tilting to the side a bit before she blinked several times and straightened back up. "I don't understand all of ...well, this." Her hands gestured between them, "but I think we need to..er- well I feel something telling me that we need to...connect. To seal this with a kiss." Luna paused, standing to move away from him while he counted another set of heartbeats.

She took a moment to compose herself, a quiet confidence returning that he was more used to seeing from the witch even back as his student. He didn't care to pick apart why she thought they needed a physical connection, his skin was too busy tingling all over at the thought of touching her.

Luna turned back then, with a more determined look. "Barty, please stand up and come closer."

Barty couldn't remember ever standing up so fast before. He rushed to come back to her side, sighing as the humming of her magic grew stronger again. It cut through the chatter and confusing in his mind, leaving peace in its wake.

She didn't speak another word before she leaned into him, both of her hands pressing flat against his chest as her lips met his. The kiss was slow and soft, maddeningly so, but he felt something unhook in his chest as their lips, tongues, and magics collided. _I can't hate her anymore_ , he realized in that kiss. _I need her too much to waste time on hatred. I need her. I need her. I need her._

His thoughts kept the pattern going as he wrapped his arms around her and gave into every sensation he had resisted before. Barty knew with every piece of him that he would do anything and everything this witch could need from him.

As Luna pulled away, he saw a glimpse again of the venerableness he would sense in her and he grinned in wicked delight. At least he was still close to a great power. In her kiss was a promise of a reckoning for their world that only he and this witch would see coming.

* * *

 _She was there with another._

Barty felt drunk in feelings he had never had before with the buzzing and the humming in his head zooming all around. The only thing souring his mood was that now she was gone from being next to him and was standing close to another. It was starting to physically hurt him to watch her embrace the other witch.

The other one was the mudblood- Hermione Granger. They were huddled together sharing secrets close to the shoreline and he watched how the wind blew his Luna's light hair into the darker curls of the other witch, mixing them together in a way that made him unreasonably jealous. Or perhaps his jealousy was the most reasonable part in this, a very human emotion for him to latch on as his body refused to obey his wishes to run far from this place.

He stood at attention instead, his thoughts interrupted by observations of how the witch who had bewitched him would turn her head occasionally to look back at him. It felt like a reward to see her face. Each time, Barty would shuffle half a step forward more, the sand around his feet a needed anchor to keep some part of his dignity in tact when he wanted to run to her. _This is her magic working._ Except, even that idea confused him, his mind telling him firmly that no, this wasn't because of a spell. He wanted her. He needed her. He was hers completely.

The next time she turned her head, Luna beckoned him to come to her as if she knew the pain of staying away. For half a breath, he resisted, wanting to show strength but his feet started to move again soon enough. He could say no to her if he wanted to. The idea made him feel like a pouting child but Barty didn't care. It was important to know at least in his own head that he could make his own choice. He just didn't want to.

Luna pointed her wand at some of the larger rocks along the shore, transfiguring them into two soft, pink couches. Without another hesitation, Barty sunk into one reaching for her hand and sighing louder than he would have liked when she took it. That drunken feeling got stronger as her magic enveloped him. There was nothing else in the world for him to care about anymore, as the humming inside of him got a little louder at her touch, an audible reassurance that she truly was all that mattered.

Logic was hard for him to grasp with her this close. Anger as well. All he had was a deep, intrinsic knowing that she was now as part of him as his own beating heart.

Potter's mudblood cleared her throat. "Luna, I need you to help me understand. What have you done to him?"

 _Ah, so that's why she called me over_. _She wants to prove I'm docile._ An assumption proved as Luna gently pulled him closer. He settled his head in her lap, taking the comfort offered. Once more two parts of his mind warred silently between accepting her touch and wanting to resist. To keep his wits he settled on playing her game, though he knew he could do nothing in reality that she didn't want.

"My Mum's family… the women can do things with their magic that we never heard about in school. She didn't teach me much about it, mostly making sure I knew this magic could be dangerous too. She said the men won't like it when we rise above them. It's old magic, Hermione, from before."

"Before what?"

"Before the men starting forming kingships and Ministries and rules to say what magic was good and what magic was bad." That got both the mudblood and his attention fast.

Luna continued, "I wasn't going to do it all the way...take him over. At least not at first. But then I kept feeling him, knowing his emotions and _I had to._ We need someone who knows what Lord Voldemort is planning on our side and this was the best way I knew how to do it. Then I heard that you, Ron and Harry had been Snatched and… we had to do something about that." Her voice took on a hollow tone and Barty wondered why she was holding back how much had happened since she was forced into the cellar. "They killed people in front of me. Dean. Do you know how it feels to watch friends die? I couldn't do it again. This wasn't for me...it was for you three. I know there's something you all have to do to end this war so I had no choice but to get you out of there."

 _She's twisting the truth_. _Playing a game with this one, too._ Something about the taint of a witch so pure manipulating others for her purpose made him ache for her more. Daringly, he grazed a thumb against her upper thigh by where his head rested. She tensed.

"And him?" The mudblood pointed at him, her face twisted with emotions Barty didn't care to decipher. He closed his eyes, breathing in the warm feeling of Luna's hold on him for another set of heartbeats and was sure to fix a glare at Hermione Granger when he opened his eyes again. It gave him a flash of delight when she flinched and gasped, although she tried to cover it with a slight cough.

"You brought back more than just us, Luna. _He_ is dangerous," Hermione repeated, her eyes trained where his head rested in Luna's lap.

"Not to me. He hadn't been a danger to me since the Tournament. Actually, he's not to anyone unless I ask him to be. Hermione, I can feel something very bad in me," Luna admitted. "I don't know if I'll be able to fix it."

"Right, well I can see that something's gone wrong. You have an insane Death Eater purring like a lap cat over there. What spell is this?"

Luna explained, in the calm voice he was beginning to recognize as one of her masks, more about the old magic she had hinted at earlier. "It's not a spell, necessarily. It's a knowing what needs to be done and the power to do it. Mum told me if I was in danger that it would get stronger. I- I can do other things, Hermione. I can make wards that are stronger than the ones we learned without my wand. I can tell what people are thinking if they are going to hurt me and make them stop. Daddy-" Barty felt new tension in her body as she paused again. "Dad is the only one alive who knows. Well, until now."

Hermione frowned. "Why didn't you tell us this before during the DA meetings?"

Barty listened a little closer, curious too at how a witch like Luna had remained under the Ministry controlled school's radar for so long. Or the order for that matter.

"Mum said people would be scared of me….that this would be seen as dark magic. And…" Luna shifted forward enough to grasp the other girl by the wrist, her other hand still touching him. "She also said that sometimes when witches with this power have tried to protect themselves...the magic reaches out and takes someone under control. It would make them follow me around, ready to do anything I need."

Barty had no proof, only a suspicion, that even with her friend Luna was holding back how much she told. _Again._ He couldn't quite place the range of new whisperings in his mind but he understood enough to know he was not simply following her around. The humming in his skull were part of them both. He needed her. He needed to worship her. To make her want him too. This was lust bound in ancient magic and honed in as a weapon.

A point he made sure the Granger girl wouldn't soon forget as he began tracing his tongue in small circles up Luna's arm followed by hard, pressing kisses, murmuring the whole way of how devoted he was to her. Even as he lavished her with this show, he could hear the humming get louder. _She wanted me to do this._ Luna was sitting still, her eyes locked on her friend who was continuing to chatter on about the danger of letting a Death Eater in, the sole sigh that escaped her lips was the only indication she was enjoying his touches.

It was only until he reached the delicate shell of her ear that he realized he had not yet thought out how he was feeling about Luna, there was a seed in his very core now that replaced the need for sorting it out with a stronger need to lay himself at her feet.

* * *

 _She was there, alone._

And he could feel her disappointment. Not with him but with her own people. Her emotion was strong enough to pull him from the intensity of the high he had felt on the beach. That left him feeling irritable, wanting to lash out at her for ruining the good feeling but as he took in her sullen face again, Barty knew he wouldn't. _Not now._

"Out with it, witch," Barty snarled as she shut and warded the shed door. Luna waited longer than he would have liked before she turned away from where her head rested against the back of the door. As she continued to face away from him, she made a motion for him to wait, standing on tiptoe to peek back through a slit in the door, presumably looking back at the cottage where her 'friends' were likely whispering about her too.

When she turned back, her calm, confident demeanor was gone again. It reminded him too much of when she had talked about death on the dungeon floor. There was a defeat in her wholly unworthy of someone as powerful as she and he wanted it to be gone from her eyes.

Even as he felt a need to do something about why her face was still turned down, he could do nothing. She may have an unexplained control over him but Barty simply couldn't provide what he didn't have and comfort was not something he knew how to give.

The others were in the house, a handful of Weasleys, the mudblood, Potter, Ollivander and a goblin they had somehow snatched from batty Bellatrix's claws in the chaos of their escape from the mansion. It was clear they wanted him gone, he would have thought the Order was truly stupid if they hadn't, but they all seemed to have a high respect for Luna. Their affection for her was likely the only reason he was not stunned the moment he arrived.

Barty wondered if they really knew why. He was curious if they had noticed how powerful she was too or if they had fallen for her guise of oddities. Were they really so stupid as to cast out a witch who could be stronger than the Dark Lord himself?

"Everything's gone all wrong!" Luna was wringing her hands, her bright eyes looking around the shed as if a clue was tucked inside. "I was supposed to use you to help us escape and then maybe to help Harry and my other friends do what they have to next and now… now…"

She looked up to meet his eyes then, her hesitation clear to him as he felt in his own body the heaviness of her emotions.

"And now they don't want to use the tool you created for them and all of this is wasted. You'd let this stop you, witch?"

Her gaze locked on his again before she shook her head. _Good._

He watched, transfixed as she inhaled deeply, her body seeming to lengthen as her head rose high with a confident stance. That flicker of something ancient he'd seen only a few times before returned to her face as Luna appeared to have light shining both through her and around her at once. This was the witch who had haunted him for years, not the simpering school girl or the odd fairy-like child. This Luna, the one who now exuded something primeval and powerful trapped inside the lithe frame of the little blonde was the one great enough to make him willing to obey her.

This was the witch who could bring the world to its knees and Barty was smitten by the possibility of it. The rest of his kind were fools if they thought this would be a battle between the Dark Lord and Potter. _This will only end by her hand._

Barty knew now, without any questioning, that he would be by this witch's side at whatever the personal cost. There was loud humming again in his head as she looked him in the eyes, her silvery-blue gaze pinning him into place. _My reward._

When she spoke next, he heard it as a whisper by his ear like he had before at the Manor. With her lips shut tight, Barty heard her say, "Then I will do what must be done _without_ them."


End file.
